CINA

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Already last week (11.13) Der Spiegel (German bourgeois magazine) published following - in my opinion not uninteresting - article:

A Pearl Harbor without War

The dollar crisis has politicians alarmed worldwide. The US currency has lost 24 percent of its value since the introduction of the euro, and now there is even a chance that China could abandon its policy of pegging its currency to the dollar -- a problem the United States should take very seriously.

What do Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen and the People's Republic of China have in common? The answer, as of last week, is that both distrust the dollar.

Patricia Bündchen, the twin sister and manager of the world's top model, announced that Gisele now prefers to be paid in euros rather than dollars. Almost simultaneously, the Chinese central bank predicted that the dollar is likely to lose its status as the world's leading currency.

One could easily overlook a supermodel's currency preferences, but China is a different story. It's the beast breathing down America's neck.

The most important country in the world for the United States isn't Great Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia or Iraq. China holds that dubious distinction, because it is also the country the US can least do without. Without its willingness to buy an almost unlimited supply of US treasury bonds, there would be no American spending miracle. Without a spending miracle there would be no economic growth. In other words, without China the US superpower would lose a significant share of its economic clout.

So far Beijing has behaved like the benevolent shopkeeper who willingly extends credit to his customers. The Americans receive shipments of Chinese-made television sets, toys and underwear, but the Chinese do not import a comparable volume of US goods. The gap between buying and selling amounts to about $5 billion every week.

The Chinese are satisfied with buying US treasury bonds, partly to keep their most important customer afloat. The central bank in Beijing already holds currency reserves of $1.4 trillion.

The Chinese have looked on with great patience as their best customer has gradually lost its ability to supply goods.

But the men in power in Beijing cannot be indifferent to the dollar's decline. It devalues their central bank's dollar reserves, the monetary embodiment of some of the fruits of China's export machine.

For the United States, a Chinese decision to abandon the dollar would be tantamount to Pearl Harbor without the war. It would represent a challenge to the world's biggest economy by the world's fastest growing economy. Millions of people would see their standard of living suffer as a result, and American self-confidence, already shaky, would crumble even further. The United States would suffer a serious blow on its very own turf, the economy.

Americans can hardly blame Beijing for their troubles. The Chinese aren't exactly kamikaze politicians, concocting some secret plan to attack the dollar. On the contrary, the preparations are taking place in full view. Translated into Texan, what the Chinese politely told the Americans last week simply means: Unless something happens, all hell will break loose.

For years the US economy has suffered one dramatic setback after another. A historic trend reversal began with the rise of the Asian economies -- first Japan, then China and now India. The United States, a once-proud exporting nation, became the world's biggest importer. In only 15 years, from 1992 to 2007, the US balance of trade deficit has surged from $84 billion to $700 billion.

Within a single generation, the world's biggest lender has become its biggest borrower, a circumstance the United States has made no serious attempts to change. And what has been Washington's standard take on the shift? The dollar is our currency, but it's your problem.

Thus, the tone of the US government's callous and thick-skinned reaction to China's announcement last week came as no surprise. There was a reason the dollar became the world's reserve currency, US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said in a slightly offended tone.

But the truth is that the United States would be better off if Paulson and the administration of President George W. Bush would take decisive action instead of sulking. The US's ability to deliver goods should be increased and its industrial base should be reinvigorated. Government and consumer spending, which in reality is doing nothing but eating away at the country's future, should be curbed. Although growth would decline as a result, it would be a more sustainable form of growth.

Last week's remark by a Chinese central bank official should be interpreted as a warning, not a threat. Indeed, China has no choice but to respond, given the dollar's ongoing weakness.

For these reasons, an attack on the US economy is probably the most easily predictable event of the coming years. And if it happens, the attacker will even be able to justify its actions as self-defense.

What is the difference between the US government in 1941 and the administration in Washington today? Perhaps there is none. A Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was unimaginable, even though US intelligence had picked up clues that it could happen. Washington, at the time, was convinced that the Japanese wouldn't dare stage an attack on a target 5,000 miles away, and that they wouldn't succeed if they did.

The crews on America's ships were sleeping as the Japanese bombers approached Pearl Harbor.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,517060,00.html

Related articles:

☞ Japanese shift cash out of U.S. investments (IHT, 11.22)

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Before y'day (11.20) during a press conference in Seoul a "North Korean defector" (according to AFP) and his supporters from Asia Press (JP) announced the launch of the ("underground") magazine "Rimjingang" carrying undercover reporting by (DPRK) citizens. Well, that's just the fact..

Secret journalists report on North (JoongAng Ilbo, 11.21)

 
The grainy video featured old women in clothes that hung from their thin frames scrounging for bottles in a market in Pyongyang that they planned to sell to recyclers.

Images like these have been seen before but this footage shown at a press conference in Seoul yesterday is different, according to a Tokyo-based journalist, because it was shot by the first independent reporters to ever work inside North Korea.

Ishimaru Jiru, of the Japan-based Asia Press International, said his group is also launching the first-ever magazine to print independent journalism by North Koreans and about North Koreans. Called Rimjingang, the bi-monthly magazine will be launched this month and distributed in both North and South Korea. It will also be translated into English and Japanese, Jiru said.

“Despite all of the limitations, we will go around every area of North Korea, and we strongly believe in reporting the truth,” he said.

Jiru, who speaks Korean, said he has visited the North Korea-China border more than 50 times and interviewed about 600 defectors. He said the project started out of frustration that he could not report what was happening inside North Korea.
“We wanted to find out what North Koreans thought, what they were doing inside North Korea and what their lives were like,” he said yesterday through an interpreter at the Foreign Correspondents Club. “I came to think we needed someone inside.”

Jiru put the word out and found a North Korean defector in China willing to risk his life to surreptiously shoot video and interview people inside his home country. “Because of the risks, I waited for someone to volunteer,” Jiru said. In 2002, he met a man who calls himself Lee Jun. Jiru explained his idea and Lee returned home to think about it.“The main goal for this reporter was to institute journalism in North Korea,” Jiru said.

Jiru taught his recruit about ethics, and the importance of accuracy. He told him not to accept bribes and he trained Lee on the equipment.

“In 2004, though he wasn’t completely ready, he filmed a marketplace [inside North Korea],” Jiru said. “At first, things weren't perfect. The reports were vague. But as time went by, he became a very good reporter.”

Lee has recruited five other clandestine reporters, Jiru said, and they get help from 10 more inside North Korea. Jiru has given them 30 cameras to use. Since these reporters could face imprisonment or worse if they are captured, they sometimes conduct interviews without telling the interviewees what they are doing, Jiru said.

He said he meets with the reporters when they cross back into China. Jiru said his group is very careful about what information is released, although they have gathered “a very large amount” in the past three years.

He said the North Koreans wanted to start the magazine to bring news to their own people. “It’s also important to let the North Koreans know what is going on in the outside world,” he said.

The magazine will include stories ranging from the general views of North Koreans to their thoughts about Kim Il Sung to crises such as the extensive flooding last August.

“Since the North Korean media is controlled by the government, there isn’t a way for the North Korean people to express themselves,” said Choi Jin I, a North Korean who defected to the South in 1999 and is working with the magazine. “I believe this will be the seed.”

Choi said the magazine will be written in Korean, but it might not be recognizable to Southerners. “We will use the exact grammar that North Korean people use,” she said. The version that gets distributed in North Korea will also be edited a second time for security reasons.
 

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2883010

More detailed articles about it you can read here:

☞ Underground Magazine "Rimjinkang" Launched (DailyNK, 11.21)

☞ “北 지하 기자들 매체 만들고 싶어해” (DailyNK, 11.22)

☞ “정말 북한 주민 기자들이 씁네다” (Hankyoreh, 11.20)

For more informations about the project please contact:

rimjingang@asiapress.org

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Well, there is a Chinese saying "I wish you interesting times" (or "May you life in interesting times"), i.e. - as far as I know - "I wish you nothing good in the future"..

So in the connection with the next presidential election in S.K. (12.19) there may come some "interesting" developments:

About two weeks ago in a Chosun Ilbo editorial it has been written that "Candidates in the broader ruling camp - Chung, Moon and Kwon - now feel in danger of being sidelined. That has added momentum to the progressive camp’s search for a single candidate of its own. In other words, they have started feeling out a possible alliance."

Even I almost - deep in the "back-yard" of my brain (no, no there is not a complete vacuum, not really!!^^) - expected that such a move could be very likeley, at first I thought: "Impossible!!"

But y'day - surprisingly (^^) - the S.K. "left"-liberal daily Hankyoreh published following report:

Prominent senior progressives urge liberals to unite

A group of prominent citizens have banded together to urge the liberal camp to unify and select one presidential candidate ahead of the December 19 election. In a press conference held on November 19, the group said that it was time for the nation’s liberals to make an impression by uniting around common values, instead of being involved in value disputes. The group includes a Seoul National University professor emeritus, Paik Nak-chung; Catholic priests Han Se-ung and Kim Byung-sang; and Rev. Park Hyeong-gyu.

“With only 30 days left before the presidential election, many people are trying to denounce our 10-year, uphill struggle for democratization and peace as ‘a lost decade,’ while those who have spearheaded democratic reforms are likely to face defeat if they are not able to keep themselves in order,” the group said at the press conference.

They urged the liberal United New Democratic Party, Democratic Party, Create Korea Party and Democratic Labor Party to unite, saying that each of the parties should look for ways for the liberal camp to win the presidential election based on the advantages each one can bring to the race.

Eminent people from all walks of life, including poet Ko Un, director of Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations Kwak Bae-hee, literary critic Koo Jung-seo, Sangji University professor Kim Seong-hun, president of Dukdung Women’s University Ji Eun-hee, Buddhist monk Cheonghwa, and novelist Hwang Suk-young, signed the statement.

They criticized what they see as “the current confrontation between people who are indifferent to whether or not the current crop of presidential candidates are law-abiding or honest, and who pursue economic development by favoring large companies and rich people, and those who hold the opposing view.”

“Political maneuvering which is not based on values should naturally be criticized, but in a situation in which there is a clear value gap within the conservative forces, the forces of democratic reform should unite as much as possible through effective political strategizing,” they said.

 
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/251302.html

Well, I wish you interesting times!! (Sorry, but - possibly - that's may be just the f.. reality!)

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STRIKE IN FRANCE: THE 7th DAY

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For yesterday several S.K. anti-war groups, KCTU, DLP, 'All Together' etc. called for a "massive protest" against the ongoing presence of S.K. troops in Iraq. But - despite the govt's latest decision to extend the troops' presence there and Roh Moo-hyun's stupid remark that his "decision to send Korean troops to Iraq was a historical error" - only a very small bunch of activists followed the call and gathered y'day afternoon in Myeong-dong to join the rally/demonstration.

A short time before, 11.03, Kim Gwang-il ('All Together'/anti-war activist) said in an interview with VoP that "Roh has confirmed several times that there would be no change of the administration's policy about the withdrawal of troops. However he breaks the promise with Korean people."

Surprise, surprise: Roh has been breaking his promise!! That must be a realy new realization for the S.K. "progressive" movement - after they defended with all their forces Roh's presidency against the attempted impeachment in spring 2004 (just one year after Roh has been breaking his promise not to support an "unjust war against Iraq")..

Finally - in my opinion - this kind of, simply said, political "confusion" in the S.K. "progressive" movement brings the "ordinary" people, even they're against the ruling gov't/class, to stay away from public political expressions.. (??!!)

Anyway.. here you can read "more"(^^) about y'day's event:

☞ 자이툰 파병 연장 저지를 위한 반전행동 (다함께)

☞ "돌아오라, 자이툰!".. (SPARK)

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First Round of Inter-Korean Premier Talks Closes (KCNA, 11.17)
  

The first round of the inter-Korean premier talks closed (last) Friday.

At the talks both sides had an exhaustive discussion on practical issues arising in invariably upholding and honoring the June 15 joint declaration and fully implementing the October 4 declaration and adopted an agreement on the talks and annexed agreements...

According to the agreement, the north and the south agreed to definitely turn the inter-Korean relations into those of mutual respect and trust in the spirit of "By our nation itself" and take steps to develop them for the purpose of reunification.

To this end, both sides agreed to take measures necessary for marking June 15 as a day common to the nation and hold celebrations of the 8th anniversary of the June 15 joint declaration in Seoul next year with an attendance of authorities and people.

They also agreed to discuss such matters as readjusting their legal and institutional mechanisms and revitalize dialogues and contacts in different fields including their parliaments.

They agreed to set up "a West Sea special area for peace and cooperation" to meet the purpose of peace and common interests in the West Sea. As a necessary measure, they adopted an agreement on the formation and operation of "a committee for the promotion of the West Sea special area for peace and cooperation" to be co-chaired by officials at ministerial level. They agreed to hold the first meeting of the committee in Kaesong within December...

To this end, both sides agreed to cooperate with each other in various fields including roads and railways, zones for cooperation in shipbuilding and the Kaesong Industrial Zone and form the North-South Joint Committee for Economic Cooperation to be co-chaired by officials at vice-premier level for the smooth progress of those projects. A relevant agreement was adopted and it was agreed to have its first meeting in Seoul from Dec. 4 to 6.
   

The north and the south also agreed to inaugurate the North-South Committee for the Promotion of Social and Cultural Cooperation with a view to promoting exchange and cooperation in history, language, education, culture, arts and other social and cultural fields and positively push forward cooperation projects in the humanitarian field from the stand of promoting national reconciliation and unity.
   

The north and the south agreed to hold the inter-Korean premier talks once in six months and the next round of the talks within the first half of 2008 in Pyongyang.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2007/200711/news11/17.htm#2

Source: S.K. media (K. Herald, 11.17)

The complete text (a first unofficial translation) of the agreement you can read here (Yonhap, 11.16).

Related:

☞ Korean leaders tout new initiatives (IHT, 11.16)

☞ Prime ministers’ talks.. (Hankyoreh, 11.17)

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Related(^^):

☞ 노무현: '파병 만세!!'

☞ (미친) 노무현..

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Today, four years ago about 200 migrant workers have begun their 387-day sit-in strike on Myeong-dong Cathedral's compound (in downtown Seoul) to protest against the beginning of S.K. government's crackdown - manhunt, mass arrests and deportations - against (undocumented) migrant workers in the country..

For more (incl. some pictures, links, music..) please see:

☞ 2003年11月15日.. (2006.11)

☞ 2 년전에.. 이주농성투쟁... (2005.11)

Related:

☞ OCAP's(CDN) solidarity with our struggle (base21, 2003.11)

☞ 平等労組移住支部 (LaborNet Japan, ETU-MB/MSSC special section)

☞ Migrant Workers.. Struggle in Seoul (indymedia feature, 2004.05)

☞ Güney Kore: Göçmen işçilerin.. (istanbul indy, special feature, 2004.06)

...etc, etc..

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Today's Asia Times (HK) published following - in my opinion -  interesting/informative article, written by A. Lenkov:

Working through Korean unification blues
 

For six decades, the myth of unification as Korea's supreme goal has been enshrined in the official mythology of both nations. The lip service to this myth is still paid by virtually all political forces in both Koreas, but the actual policy of both Pyongyang and Seoul nowadays is clearly based on a very different set of assumptions and hopes: both sides try to avoid situations which might lead to unification.

There are good reasons for this quiet change of policy. The gap between the Koreas is too great; depending on which calculations you believe the per capita gross domestic product in the South is between 15 and 40 times higher than that of the North. Perhaps, nowhere in the world one can find two neighboring countries whose income levels would be so vastly different - and in this case the two countries happen to speak the same language.

The North Korean rulers know perfectly well that in a unified country they would be unable to keep their privileges, and also are likely to be held responsible for decades of gross human-rights abuses and economic mismanagement. South Koreans are no more willing to unify with their impoverished brethren - unification of Germany where the initial situation was much better, became an ordeal, so the unification of Korea would clearly become a disaster.

Therefore, South Korean politicians are doing everything possible to support the dictatorship in Pyongyang, assuming that "stability" in the North is necessary for South Korean economic prosperity..

This policy is usually explained as a way to "create the environment for Chinese-style reforms". This indeed might be its long-term goal, but for all practical reasons the major immediate outcome of massive South Korean aid is a continuous survival of the Pyongyang dictatorship. The statement that a "German scenario is unacceptable" has become a mantra of Seoul politicians.

However, over the past decades, Kim Jong-il's regime has not shown the slightest inclination to reform itself. Obviously, the Pyongyang elite believes that the Chinese model, so enthusiastically extolled by the good-wishers from Seoul, is not acceptable for them. Perhaps they are correct in their fears. The existence of a rich and free South, always presented as another part of the same nation, makes the situation in Korea quite different from that of China or Vietnam.

Chinese-style reforms, if undertaken by Pyongyang, are bound to produce a certain openness of the country and certain relaxation of political control. As a result, the North Korean populace will soon learn about South Korean prosperity and will be less afraid of the regime's repressive machine. It's questionable to what extent the North Koreans would be willing to obey a government whose track record has been so bad after they see an attractive alternative of the South.

Hence, North Korean leaders have made a rational decision: to keep stability and their own privileges, in recent years they have used foreign aid to roll back the changes which happened in the mid-1990s. Instead of reforms, they now do everything possible to limit or ban private economic activity and reassert their control over society.(*)

Despite the government's resistance to reform, the North Korean system is gradually crumbling from below, and this slow-motion disintegration might turn into an uncontrollable collapse in any moment. A sudden death of even a serious illness of Kim Jong-il is almost certain to trigger a serious crisis. If this happens, all bets are off, but it seems that a collapse of the system, Romanian or East German style, is one of the most likely outcomes.

This is what people in the South fear most. Indeed, unification might indeed spell economic and social disaster for the rich South...

Please read the full (very long) article here!

*(Somehow) related:

☞ ..N.Korea Cracks Down Female Merchants (Chosun Ilbo, 11.9)

PS:

Lenkov wrote in his article: "A report.. states that if unification happened in 2015, it would cost US$858 million to raise North Korean per capita income to half of the South Korean level.."

But I think it must be US$858 billion!

K. Times wrote last month (10.28) following: "Expenses for the reunification of the two Koreas will range from $850 billion and $1.3 trillion if it comes between 2015 and 2040.."

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While the S.K. gov't (i.e. Roh Moo-hyun and his gang) last Sunday has been showing its ugliest - i.e. common (state terrorist) - side, at the same time Roh demonstrated that he's (likely) complete crazy - or better said clearly irresponsibly.

According to K. Times he "said Sunday that his decision to send Korean troops to Iraq was a historical error". ``As president it was an inevitable decision to send troops to Iraq,'' Roh said in an interview with K-TV. ``I realized that this was a time when I couldn't help but make a historical error even though I didn't want to.''

What? WTF he's talking about??

Just  20 days ago the S.K. gov't - decided to extend the presence of S.K. occupation forces in Iraq - the "Zaytun Division" - until the end of 2008.

And on the same day, according to Yonhap News Roh maintained that "Kim Jong-il the is most flexible man in North Korea". Wow, that's one of the "best" jokes I ever heared!! Harrharr, even CNN reported about this crazy contribution by Roh..

Well, I think there is no further comment necessary anymore..

☞ Sending Troops to Iraq Was Historical Error: President (K. Times, 11.11)

☞ Kim Jong Il 'most flexible man' (CNN/AP, 11.11)